Tag Archives: Morality

As readers of previous posts and my facebook page are well aware, I use these terms quite frequently. I have come to realize that, despite my best efforts to contextualize the use of these terms, many people are either unable or unwilling to understand what I mean by crime, vice, and sin. Today, I plan on setting things straight such that I don’t have to explain it quite as frequently.

As can easily be guessed, being a philosopher and an anarchist, I do not believe the contemporary and common use of the term “crime” is valid. As I have expressed already, the laws of man are inherently unjust; as such, the term “criminal” cannot apply to an identical class of things as the term “illegal”, as is commonly assumed in our culture. Instead, I define a crime as any action intentionally or negligently directed at the invasion or destruction of another’s life, liberty, or property. In other words, it is an action which violates someone’s rights or duties.

Easy examples consist of incidents of murder, coercion, and theft. Some such instances of these crimes are difficult to discern outright, as would be the case of unreasonable bank fees, protection rackets, systematic coercion, or deprivation of life essentials. There exist any number of examples that could be presented. It is crucial to have a clearly defined set of necessary and sufficient conditions for what is to be considered a crime for reference in these more veiled instances of crime, given the dire consequences.

I doubt anyone is reading this, let alone anyone accepts or wishes to help me refine these conditions, but I am compelled to attempt a definition. The result should be intuitive, but still analytically sound such as to justify one’s response. I believe that if one demonstrates resolve with regards to performing an action, has a demonstrable ability to perform such an action, and the action in question is an immediate or direct and demonstrable causal violation of someone else’s life, liberty or property, the action in question is a crime. In this way, holding a gun to someone’s head and demanding a particular behavior or taking someone else’s property without consent is a crime. Conversely, making idle threats, wishing cancer at people, and using incandescent light bulbs are not crimes as they do not meet the conditions I have outlined to be necessary and sufficient.

Now is a good time to point out why my definition of a crime possesses more

A handy flowchart I found that explains this reasoning

utility than the non-aggression principle (NAP). The most commonly accepted iteration of the NAP can be and is used to justify coercing, stealing from, and even murdering people for things like using incandescent light bulbs, belonging to a different community, smoking tobacco, driving a car, refusing vaccines, and just about any other non-criminal action that could be considered a nuisance by some. These justifications are logically consistent when using the NAP as one’s initial premise. Of course, attempting to do such things to someone for using the wrong light bulb is, itself, aggression. The issue hinges on people’s definition of “aggression”, and any definition which does not result in counter-intuitive or absurd claims will be equivalent to my definition of crime. A similar issue arises with the less popular objectivist “non-initiation of force” principle.

If I were to simply claim that my definition of crime and prescription as to how to handle it were the extent of moral and ethical reasoning required, we may very well witness a conservative’s nightmare: legions of communist, polygamist, sodomites freebasing coke and praying to Allah simply because it isn’t a crime to do so. Of course, it’s equally likely that we would see a liberal’s nightmare emerge: mobs of tobacco-chewing, corporatist, racist, fundamentalist Christians chugging liters of soda while deforesting the amazon. What I am alluding to, obviously, is that there are courses of action which are not crimes but are not conducive to human flourishing. The main focus of this portion of the post is vice. A vice is any non-criminal activity which would prevent or inhibit the participant from pursuing their telos.

Again, I am guilty of referencing my still-unfinished book. A quick primer is in order. “Telos”, a Greek term which has been at the center of philosophical discourse since Aristotle, essentially means “end” or “purpose”. I argue that any individual is beholden to a certain hierarchy of teloi (plural of “telos”), but that is a discussion best left to my book or later posts. For now, we can simply say that eudaimonia is any individual’s ultimate goal. Another Greek word: “eudaimonia” is a very technical and precise term which, for our current uses, can be reduced to “free and productive flourishing”.

Any activity which would limit one’s freedom, productivity, or well-being can be considered a vice. Addiction, mind-altering substances, dependency, time-wasting activities, body-harming practices, character-undermining activities, prophylactics… essentially the traditional list of vices are good examples of what can be considered a vice. Now, am I a tee-totaling puritan hellbent on avoiding anything fun? I play video games, drink alcohol, smoke cigars, stay up late, work a 40-hour wage-slave job, and so much more. I am still dependent on others’ skills and resources. I still rely on less-than-perfect activities to sublimate my aggression and discomfort. I still use Google, Facebook, and Windows. In other words, I still have my vices.

As I will likely discuss in an upcoming post, the virtues of prudence and temperance are paramount in flourishing. With regards to handling vice, prudence and temperance are also key. While it would be ideal for people to simply commit to being a taoist or stoic sage, an ascetic monk, or whatever and eschew all vice outright, it is not entirely possible and may, itself, be a vice of sorts. Instead of abandoning the real world for some gnostic exercise in death, most people may flourish best by approaching their own vice from the perspective of a responsible cost/benefit analysis. There is a reason I smoke cigars rarely as opposed to mainlining heroin daily.

Whereas “How do I deal with criminals?” warrants a near-infinite number of discussions, “How do I deal with a vicious person?” is pretty straightforward. If one’s vices are, in fact, vices and not crimes, they ought to be free from coercion, murder, or theft, like any other human being. If their vices are beyond the realm of tolerance, such as someone vigorously masturbating in public, they can be refused service, reprimanded, shunned, etc. The social norm can be enforced without resorting to criminal actions against someone. Social norms, tolerance, and exile are ideas that will be more thoroughly explored when I get around to talking about cities, the Dunbar number, and intentional communities.

If any of my nine readers are Christians, they are likely pulling out their hair and screaming, “SMOKING WEED WILL LAND YOU IN HELL!” I jest. In all seriousness, though, a great many vices and all crimes are sins. If a crime is someone violating another’s rights and a vice is someone preventing their own flourishing, where is sin in this whole mess? I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet. So far, I’ve written very little on relationships. There are a handful of reasons this is the case, but now I’m compelled to do so.

Sin is relational. I can pretend that I have a relationship with you, my anonymous, silent reader. If I start hiding pictures of my manhood in my posts or if every post were to gradually devolve into senseless diatribes against Ronald McDonald and the lizard Jews, I would be damaging my relationship with those of you who expect philosophy from me. I would be sinning against you.

If I am in relationship with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnivalent, omnibenevolent, omni-omni, being… especially one that created me personally for the sake of us coming into full communion with each other… any action which would make me less omni-omni and therefore less able to come into communion with Him would be a sin against Him. The same applies to any action which would otherwise damage our relationship.

TL;DR: If someone is intentionally and willfully acting in direct violation of another’s rights, they are committing a crime. If someone is doing something which prevents or inhibits human flourishing but isn’t a crime, they are committing a vicious act. Sin is any activity which damages a relationship. In this way, sins against God would be actions which damage one’s relationship with God. As always: you ought to defend yourself from criminals, reprimand and ignore vicious people, and avoid sin.

A coworker of mine and I had an interesting conversation while preparing the sanctuary for Christmas a couple weeks ago. He’s been a friend of mine on Facebook for about a decade or so, but probably hasn’t seen many of my posts until recently. That is, until I began posting hundreds of statuses, articles, and memes daily. A while back, it would have likely been concerning evil democrats ruining our country… nowadays, it’s more about evil statists ruining everyone’s lives; a small but important broadening of perspective. Anyway, I had mentioned that I hate Christmas music, to which he replied, “Not as much as you hate cops.” A very interesting discussion ensued. I decided that a discussion which touches on the same points would serve as a nice blog post preceding the one on institutionalized states of war.

A different coworker jokingly followed up that conversation with a comment, “People might think you’re a Muslim, you hate pigs so much.” Which, while hilarious, was cause for contemplation. Do I hate cops? I mean, I’m an anarchist, so clearly the idea of laws and enforcers raises my hackles. But do I hate cops? Cops, like everyone else, are individuals living out their lives… so, as people, I would have to get to know each one individually before determining whether or not I hate them as a person.

Looking at the psychology of what would entice one into becoming a cop would likely illuminate the situation. In the interest of determining the truth of the matter, I will try to give everyone the benefit of a doubt. From people I know and stories I’ve read, many people who become cops do so “for the right reasons”. They want to protect the weak from criminals, want to protect society from the chaos of lawlessness, they want to carry on the family tradition, and they want to help those that can’t help themselves. It seems that the origin of these desires would be the warrior spirit and inculturation. The warrior spirit drives men to pursue virtue, lead others, and protect one’s community. The state has, in a history of calculated genius, always attempted to monopolize the ability to fulfill that telos. Within the confines of the state, in order to pursue the warrior’s path, one must become a soldier in service of the state. All other options are either outlawed or regulated out of existence. Before you tell yourself, “Wait, I thought he was talking about cops, not the military,” the only categorical distinction betwixt the two (and now, even a superficial one, given the equipment and “authority” they employ) is who they are aimed at. Military for citizens of other nations, cops for citizens of the same nation. When a young man has the warrior spirit burning within his chest and a DARE officer comes to his class and he watches G.I Joe on TV, it is only natural that they would pursue such a career; all other options for fulfilling that telos have been eliminated by the state.

These intelligent, driven, and virtuous men become cops. Unfortunately, helping protect the weak from the strong, protecting the community, and generally doing the warrior thing are not the only items in the job description. To be honest, I don’t even think that these are in the handbook, let alone the job description. These good people are trained, take an oath, put on a badge, and set out to do good. Their intention does not match their actions. The moral reality is such that one cannot both be a good person and be a good cop: one is a good cop at the expense of being a good person and vice versa.

What makes a cop a cop? A cop is a law enforcement officer. Contained within that statement is all of the material I have and likely ever will write about anarchy. Fore example, it contains the question “what is a law?” amongst many others. This question, though, is one that needs to be addressed in part, right here. Many of my friends have brought up laws of physics (aka: natural law) in discussions with regards to the tragedy of enforcement. There is little that can be said to deny that the universe has a natural order to it; gravity works, things live and die, the universal speed limit is 299,792,458 meters per second, and the lowest thermostat setting is 0° K. All in all, it seems logically consistent and can easily encompass the metaphysical. We call this whole of natural order “natural law”.

Of course, even the most staunchly Thomist theologian will deny a claim that God just sat in the clouds and wrote: “Article 1, Section 1, Paragraph 1: No particle shall travel at a velocity exceeding 299,792,458 meters per second. Any particle found exceeding such a velocity shall be charged with a misdemeanor…” In all reality, natural law is either a brute fact or an expression of the logically consistent nature of the divine. We use the phrase “natural law” allegorically, applying our common experience of the irresistible and pervasive desires of a king to our common experience of the irresistible and pervasive pull of gravity. This allegorical use of language is one-way. One can say that the natural order of things is similar to the laws of man, but the laws of man bear only a superficial resemblance to the natural order.

This one-way comparison is such due to one simple element: enforcement. Jesus and/or Carl Sagan don’t sit in a heavenly courtroom, sentencing those pesky neutrinos for speeding and anti-gravitons for obstructing the law. The natural order simply is. Every aspect of the material world simply behaves in a consistent manner, despite how much one may wish it to be otherwise. The laws of man, on the other hand, only exist insofar as there is a man willing to enforce it. One can argue that moral maxims are a part of the natural order. I do. For example, “Thou shalt not murder,” seems to naturally fall out of a rational understanding of the nature of the human person. For one to recognize and pronounce such a truth is to do a service to all men. However, to say, “Thou shalt not murder, or a man funded by public theft will hunt you down and lock you in a theft-funded cage for the rest of your theft-funded life (or, just kill you if he’s having a bad day)” is a crime. As will be addressed in future posts, the law of man is nothing more than an opinion backed by a gun.

Unfortunately for the good people who become cops, a law enforcement officer is that gun backing the opinion. Rather than protecting the weak from the strong, in becoming a cop one makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker. Whether it be a king demanding taxes, a representative setting an arbitrary speed limit, the democrats demanding Socrates’ death, or a mafioso selling “insurance”, the only way such a goal is accomplished is by way of armed enforcers. One who has internalized slave morality in its totality may say, “I pay my taxes voluntarily, I follow laws to uphold the social contract, and when a cop pulls me over I comply because I clearly fucked up.” The stark reality, though, is one of armed coercion. What happens if one chooses to disregard the opinion being enforced? If one fails to pay their property tax, will not cops come and tell him to leave their own property? If one refuses to have their land stolen, will he not be locked in a cage or shot? If one disregards the opinion that he has to drive 65 MPH on the open road or that he must stop for a car with flashing plastic lights, will he not wind up dead on the side of the road?

The truth of the matter is that every interaction one has with the law is one of coercion. If you don’t do as you are told, regardless of the moral quality of your actions, a cop can kill or cage you. This reveals one more reason why one could make a rational choice to become a cop. If one is intelligent enough to discover this truth, but lack the moral compass that many posses, they may want to become a cop. If one has few marketable skills, self-esteem issues, violent tendencies, and no scruples being paid with stolen money, there is a particular form of welfare available to these people, called law enforcement. One doesn’t need to look far to see evidence to bolster this claim.

I’ve brought up stolen money twice now. All I mean by it is that all forms of government payroll and protection are welfare, including police “authority” and paychecks. Welfare is stealing from those deemed “too well off” in order to give it to those who have been deemed unable to care for themselves.

So, do I hate cops? Yes, but only in the same way I hate all criminals. That is to say, all of the rules outlined in the post titled “What is the State of War?” apply no more or less to cops than any other person (http://madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/what-is-the-state-of-war). I don’t hate them as people, I’m sure they’re generally nice, good natured, and virtuous people… when they aren’t committing crimes in the name of the king. It’s simply tragic that they find themselves daily caught in the balance between paying the bills and being a good person.

TL;DR: A man cannot both be a good person and a good cop. Insofar as he is one, it is at the expense of the other. Every action a cop takes is done in a manner that is backed by the threat of death or imprisonment. This makes all cops criminals. I have already made my opinions on criminals clear.

What is war? Can war ever be justified? So many questions and so many emotionally charged readers… lets see how rationally we can navigate this terrain and, consequently, how many people I can piss off in this post.

“War, huh yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, oh hoh, oh
War huh yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again y’all
War, huh good God
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me”~Edwin Starr

War, by the broadest definition, is man killing man. One can argue for qualifiers in order to narrow the application of the term, something like “large numbers of men killing large numbers of men” or “the institutionalized or systematic state of men killing men” or “states fighting states”, etc. While I am sympathetic to the desire to make “war” a technical and precise term, the manner in which the term has been used historically has been intentionally broad and inclusive, with a few exceptions. Instead, qualifiers are typically assigned on top of the term to better explain the circumstance: “civil war”, “guerrilla warfare”, “world war”, “war of X”, “war on X”, etc. It is even said when small numbers of men are involved; when two tribes or gangs consisting of a few dozen engage in killing each other , it is called tribal or gang warfare.

Thomas Hobbes, the architect of contemporary views on the human condition, aptly used the term “state of war” to describe two closely related states of affairs. The first being any situation in which a man attempts to deprive another of their life. The second is an environment or state of affairs in which there is a known disposition for such an occasion. Hobbes then equivocates this second form of a “state of war” with what he calls the “state of nature”: that is, his impoverished view of anarchy. Of course, I disagree with his false dichotomy of either sacrificing any and all rights to a tyrant or living in a perpetual solitary state of war, but his definition of war seems solid enough.

What does a state of war look like, then? Some examples are easy to point out: Nazis marching into Poland, remote-controlled planes dropping “ordinance” on children, and gangs executing people wearing the wrong color, (or an environment where such things are common) for example. There are far less obvious examples to draw on as well, but these tend to be more controversial due to their more discreet nature. I will save those for later.

For now, let’s see whether war is ever justified. As I mentioned very briefly in “Towards a Definition of Anarchy” and hope to addressing detail later, one has a duty to life and a moral obligation to acknowledge and respect others’ duty to the same. It’s a very short axiomatic step to then say war (and the state of war) is categorically unjust. Simple and straightforward, right? Well, yes… but with a qualifier.

I have a duty to live and flourish, and by extension must not inhibit others from doing the same. In a purely rational and robotic world, this would mean that mankind would never encounter or even conceive of a state of war. Of course, experience tells us a very different, more Hobbesian, story. What happens when someone violates their obligation to allow another to live and flourish? What happens when there is a gun in my face? Does one have a duty to live or an obligation to let live? There is only one rationally consistent answer: the would-be-victim has a duty to stop the aggressor from taking the victim’s life. If this means the death of the aggressor, so be it.

It is always tragic when someone is killed; again, in a world of purely rational actors, such an event would not occur. However, it is infinitely more tragic when an innocent person is killed by a criminal rather than the other way around. Why is this the case? When one is innocent of a crime (using Spooner’s definition of a crime), the are to some degree fulfilling their duty to live and flourish. Conversely a criminal is not only acting in direct violation of their duty to live and flourish (from the virtue ethics perspective) which is a vice, but also depriving others of their ability to do so. The engagement in a criminal act is to enter into a state of war, and a systematic criminal rings a state of war with him wheresoever he may go.

We have touched on how one instigates war (by attempting to coerce, rob, or murder someone), but not what the target of said instigator ought to do in concrete terms. Firstly, of course, one ought to take all reasonable precautions to avoid such an occasion: moving to a safer region, locking doors, demonstrating a secure posture in both person and property, and behaving in a virtuous and amiable manner are all good examples. Secondly, one ought to be prepared for such an occasion. Both mental and physical preparedness are required; being able to tactically assess one’s environment at all times, to have the tools needed for security on-hand, and the mental and physical ability to use said tools are a requirement for preparedness.

Thirdly, if or when the first two steps prove to be insufficient, one will find themselves faced with the immediate threat of war. In such a situation, it would seem that there are a series of morally acceptable courses of action. If possible, one must try to defuse the situation before it escalates to violence. One such option would be to simply “talk down” their aggressor… to say something to the effect of “I know you don’t want to do this, let’s work through this together” another option would be to warn the aggressor that if he does not stand down, he will, in fact, be executed on the spot. Diffusing the situation is not always possible, as sometimes war sets in unexpectedly and with great intensity. Easy examples would be when a gang randomly assaults a bystander or when the SWAT team performs a no-knock raid, but I repeat myself. In the event such an action is impossible or fails, there remains the most primordial of dichotomies: fight or flight. If one can successfully flee with one’s life, liberty, and property intact one would be justified in doing so (as long as one later performs one’s due diligence in raising awareness of the instigator’s behavior). However, if any one of the three cannot successfully be secured and one parts with any of the three to any degree (even in the de-escalation phase), one is complicit in the crimes committed against oneself. In the act of turning over possessions or liberties demanded of oneself unjustly, one is enabling and condoning the theft and coercion occurring. Additionally, a compliant victim allows a criminal to pursue theft from others and such a criminal will likely become a repeat customer with regards to a compliant victim. Such is the case with murder as well, excepting the “repeat customer” portion of course.

The remaining and most unfortunately likely course of action available to one forced into a state of war is to fight. In the case of war, the victim of the instigator is thrust into an unjust situation by an unjust actor. How ought one conduct oneself in the state of war? Ultimately, there is only one acceptable answer: with all the fury, power, ferocity, and coldly calculated intent to kill that one can muster. Anything less would be, itself, a criminal and vicious act.

How could pulling punches of “showing mercy” be a crime and a vice? Well, it is quite simple, really. Once every option to avoid a state of war has been exhausted, the intent of the aggressor to commit a criminal act against the victim at any cost has been established. Any degree in which one is derelict in commitment to stopping an aggressor in the most efficacious and efficient manner possible is a degree to which one is complicit in an aggressor’s crime. In this degree one is derelict in combating the aggressor is a degree in which one is willing to allow the aggressor to commit a crime against oneself What’s more, not only a crime against oneself but the aggressor has effectively established the nature of his character to be a criminal one; therefore, allowing the criminal to commit a crime against oneself is to encourage him to commit crimes against others.

Remember, anarchy is a philosophy of personal responsibility, not winner-take-all violence. Those who believe it is their right or ability to act out a Hobbesian liberty (the ability to do literally whatever one wants with no regard to the rights of others) will not live long in truly anarchist society. An easy explanation as to why this is the case is to simply imagine a society in which a majority of people live by the standard outlined here and how such a society would respond to a Hobbesian.

I will follow-up on this post in the near future with regards to how one ought to conduct their affairs when living in an institutionalized state of war.

TL;DR: The state of war is is a state of affairs in which one or more individuals cannot be dissuaded from committing a crime. When one is faced with the prospect of war, one ought to do what one can to avoid it. If one is forced into a state of war, one ought to pursue the most effective and expedient method by which to halt said criminal. Namely, they must kill their aggressor.

There is a further discussion of this topic at about the 1:19:00 mark of Sovryh Tech Ep. 108:

Throughout Athenian history, the form and function of an “archon” changed in various ways, but all of the meanings and applications of the term shared three things in common:

Reverence of the position held, regardless of the actions of the individual holding the position

Authority to dictate the actions of others

A support structure or institution designed to grant that authority

Because of the close relationship between mythology and political life in ancient cultures, the term archon was used to both describe human actors and intermediary deities/angels/spirits. Excepting instances wherein poetic license was used heavily, the term clearly applied to one or the other type of being; much like our use of the term “love” being applied to loving pie and loving your wife (with the only grey area being “American Pie”). Because of this distinction, I am comfortable in focusing primarily on the word as applies to human archons as apposed to divine archons.

However, it is interesting to note the mythological use of the term, and it does inform the use of the term as applies to humans. In many ancient religions, “archon” was the word applied to spiritual beings responsible for acts of widespread destruction. They typically targeted non-believers. The gnostics, especially, interpreted archons to be any being which acted in such a manner so as to prevent human beings from pursuing individuality, excellence, eudaimonia, or from taking responsibility, but this use was fairly widespread when translating other religious texts into Greek as well.

So, in the interest of crafting a concise, simple, and categorical etymology of the Greek word “archon”, I assert the definition of “archon”is as follows:
“An individual who claims the authority to coercively dictate the behavior of other individuals, especially in cases which cause destruction or prevent other individuals from pursuing individuality, acquiring excellence or eudaemonia, or taking responsibility.”
Of course, a Philosophy is always more complex than an etymological definition of its moniker. I like to make the arbitrary claim that the best philosophies closely match their moniker and I believe anarchy to be an example of this claim. Being an ontologically negative term, “no-archon” can be taken at face value to be a form of either rejecting a claim or to be an enumeration of negative claims. In this case, it is both.

Firstly, it is the rejection of the claim that one has the right or ability to be an archon. Where one may claim to be a monarch, oligarch, tetrarch, etc. they may as well be claiming to be the Messiah or Darth Vader. The same applies to terms which are not explicitly descended from the term “archon”; a republican, democrat, theocrat, etc. is an equally fictitious position to be held. I will address this rejection of belief in archons later.

Secondly, anarchy as a philosophy is an enumeration of negative claims, many of which are ontological in nature. Many times, the dramatic claim of an individual anarchist is, “No gods, No masters”. This claim, while effective and concise is overly simplistic and vague. I contend that the attitude of the motto is accurate, being derived loosely from the etymology of the name and philosophy. A less dramatic but more accurate version would be “no slaves, no masters” or “Man holds no authority over man.” The reasons I wish to avoid “no gods, no masters” is probably fairly apparent; I believe that belief in certain deities is compatible with the tenets of anarchy (that is a matter for later blog posts), and the term “master” has multiple meanings and applications, many of which are not related to slavery; by putting “slaves” alongside “masters”, it demonstrates the particular application of the term “master” which one ought to assume.

So, what does anarchy mean as a philosophy? Clearly, the first negative ontological claim would be that no man has the right to coerce others to behave in a particular fashion and any institution designed for the sake of coercion or predicated upon such actions ought to be done away with. Coercion is a term with many feelings and intuitions surrounding it; many of which, if inaccurate, touch on key elements of it. However, to an analytic such as myself, a clear definition or at least description of the term is required in order to flesh out a legitimate philosophical stance. In the case of coercion, I imagine the definition is something akin to “an action or threat of action which intentionally removes one’s means of achieving flourishing with the intent to compel a particular action.” For example, saying “Do X or I will kill you,” is clearly coercion. A less obvious example would be saying, “Don’t do X (especially where X is a component necessary or beneficial to one’s flourishing) or you will be put in a cage and I will steal your property.” When phrased this way, it is obviously coercion… but it can be less obvious when each piece of that statement is multiplied a thousandfold and spread between millions of pages of legal code. The fallout of such forms of coercion is readily apparent to anyone who looks at certain parts of the public record (or my facebook page).

Equally damaging to human flourishing are the issues of murder and theft. These are both closely related to coercion, but the full relationship between the three is so complex and rich that I do not have the time and space to fully address it in this post, but I will explicitly address it later. For now, I will have to content myself and any would-be readers with a brief examination of the issue as pertains to the definition of anarchy. The root desire which leads to the need to be free from coercion cannot be fulfilled if one is subject to the threat of murder, especially when institutionalized, for the same reasons that one must be free from coercion. Also, by definition, murder is unjustified and an immediate stop on one’s ability to flourish by any defensible standard.

Theft is often the most veiled and insidious of the three issues at hand. Where murder is fairly cut and dried as far as identification is concerned and coercion is infrequently undetectable, theft is more difficult to define and can often go unnoticed indefinitely. However, if one is exposed to institutionalized theft, even indirect and unnoticed theft, they are subject to an institutionalized inhibitor of their freedom and flourishing.

So, then, anarchy is ultimately the rejection of any institution predicated on or designed for the sake of coercion, theft, or murder. There is a multitude of reasons why one would come to embrace such a philosophy and worldview, some of which I will address in later posts. One thing is certain, though: no one who embraces anarchy as defined above does so out of naivete or a desire to perpetuate the same crimes which such a philosophy decries. Anarchy is not a guarantee that people will not commit the crimes of coercion, theft, and murder; the idea that such a thing is possible is utopic and therefore absurd. However, any worldview that does not fundamentally incorporate the anarchist position is a guarantee that people and institutions will commit these crimes. Those that wish to commit these crimes have far easier and safer means by which to accomplish their goals than anarchy. For example, they can become politicians, cops, soldiers, democrats, or middle and upper management at a corporation, thereby granting themselves a secure position which allows them to commit the very crimes they wish to pursue while remaining above social reproach, as opposed to taking on the risk associated with the moniker of freedom from such crimes. That is not to say that all people who choose such careers do so out of the desire to commit crimes with impunity, but these positions certainly encourage such activities and some are predicated directly on these crimes. Before I ramble too far beyond the topic at hand, I should save such ideas for later posts.

TL;DR: In conclusion, I propose the starting place for formulating a categorical definition of anarchy would be “The rejection of any institution predicated on coercion, theft, or murder”. This definition is subject to critique and revision, but so far has served me well.